Before the publication of this volume, all studies of Michael Angelo's
poetry, all translations made of it, and all hypotheses deduced from
the sculptor's verse in explanation of his theory or his practice as an
artist, were based upon the edition of 1623. It will not be superfluous
to describe what that edition was, and how its text differed from that
now given to the light, in order that the relation of my own English
version to those which have preceded it may be rightly understood.[4]

Michael Angelo seems to have entertained no thought of printing his
poems in his lifetime. He distributed them freely among his friends, of
whom Sebastiano del Piombo, Luigi del Riccio, Donato Giannotti,
Vittoria Colonna, and Tommaso de' Cavalieri were in this respect the
most favoured. In course of time some of these friends, partly by the
gift of the originals, and partly by obtaining copies, formed more or
less complete collections; and it undoubtedly occurred to more than one
to publish them. Ascanio Condivi, at the close of his biography, makes
this announcement: 'I hope ere long to make public some of his sonnets
and madrigals, which I have been long collecting, both from himself and
others who possessed them, with a view to proving to the world the
force of his inventive genius and the beauty of the thoughts produced
by that divine spirit.' Condivi's promise was not fulfilled. With the
exception of two or three pieces printed by Vasari, and the extracts
quoted by Varchi in his 'Lezione,'[5] the poems of Michael Angelo
remained in manuscript for fifty-nine years after his death. The most
voluminous collection formed part of the Buonarroti archives; but a
large quantity preserved by Luigi del Riccio, and from him transferred
to Fulvio Orsini, had passed into the Vatican Library, when
Michelangelo the younger conceived the plan of publishing his
granduncle's poetry. Michelangelo obtained leave to transcribe the
Vatican MSS. with his own hand; and after taking pains to collate all